Dr. William Nitzky, "Collaborative Culture in Museums: Intercultural Dialogue and the African Diaspora in Japan"
Friday, February 3rd
12:00 PM, Humanities Center, PAC 113
Dr. William Nitzky is an Associate Professor of Anthropology.
Dr. Nitzky's research spans the sub-disciplines of Socio-Cultural Anthropology and Museum Studies. Within Socio-Cultural Anthropology, he focuses on identity politics, ethnic relations, and rural development among ethnic minorities of China. Since 2000, he has conducted fieldwork in China examining state-minority relations, ethnohistory, ethnic minority religious practices, and the politics of cultural representation and poverty alleviation through the tourism industry in the regions of Yunnan, Guizhou, and Guangxi, southwest China. His recent research turns to the implications of the recent nationwide heritage protection campaign for local ethnic minority communities, claims to heritage (both tangible and intangible), and power relations between different stakeholders. Through his fieldwork with Yao and Miao ethnic groups in Guangxi and Yunnan, in particular, he has begun to map the historical trajectory of bronze drum heritage across the region and the transformation in function and meaning of the drum in everyday life.
Rachel Skokowski
Friday, March 3rd
12:00 PM, Humanities Center, PAC 113
Dr. Rachel Skokowski is the Curator of the Janet Turner Print Museum.
Dr. Rachel Skokowski joined the Turner in 2022. She has worked with museum print collections in the US and abroad, including at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the University of Sydney, and the Ashmolean Museum. She received her PhD from the University of Oxford, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and holds a Masters from Oxford and a BA from Princeton University. Her research and teaching interests include 18th and 19th century French print culture, text and image studies, and women printmakers. She is passionate about using new technology to make museums more accessible to diverse audiences.
Hannah Burdette: "An Index of Possible Worlds: Towards a Theory of Indigenista Speculative Fiction"
Friday, October 7th
12:00 PM, Humanities Center, PAC 113
Hannah Burdette is Associate Professor of Spanish & Latin American Studies.
Since the 1990s, several non-Indigenous authors of varying backgrounds and nationalities have turned to speculative fiction to reflect on the relationship between capitalist development and Indigenous thought. This presentation will explore what it means to use Indigenous worldviews as a framework for envisioning alternatives to modernity/coloniality. To what extent does a writer’s ethnic identity and cultural background define and/or limit the text’s decolonial possibilities? Why do Indigenous political philosophies provide such a compelling framework for questioning the progression of capitalist exploitation into the future?
Sangmin Lee: "Walk, Map, and Engage Interculturally"
Friday, November 4th
12:00 PM, Humanities Center, PAC 113
Sangmin Lee is Assistant Professor of Art Education.
This research aims to understand how pre-service teachers critically conceive themselves and their community through walking video making and community narrative mapping. Another aim of this study is investigating how they engage with other cultures through walking video and community narrative map. This research support pre-service art education to integrate individual’s daily lives and culture into the educational programs and expand cultural perspectives of pre-service teachers through intercultural engagement.
